Australians' Olympic "whinging"

Sports

Australians' Olympic "whinging" leaves sour after-taste

SNIPING about Sydney’s Olympics is starting to make Australians look like a pack of whingers.

The grizzling - “we don’t want Americans marching in our opening ceremony! We can’t have Olympic volleyball on our Bondi Beach! The tickets cost way too much!” - is enough to induce a severe case of cul tural cringe.

Sydney became the envy of hun dreds of cities across the world in 1993 when it won the chance to host the biggest show in history - the Millenni um Olympic Games.

Ten thousand of the fastest, fittest and most talented athletes from 198 nations - flanked by 15,000 members of the international media - will make Australia the centre of attention at the start of a new century.

The 2000 Games will bring a record television audience of 25 billion peo ple worldwide, a stream of big-spend ing tourists and priceless publicity.

Australia can shake off its ocker Down Under image and showcase its cosmopolitan and egalitarian society-, its technological edge and its corpo rate sophistication.

Yet, as the spotlight moves towards Sydney, what does it highlight?

Parochial bleating about marching

bands and complaints about Olympic venues - a fine example of NIMBY (not in my back yard) syndrome in practice.

And how is this being viewed abroad? Well, a Californian newspaper columnist called Australians a “bunch of low-down back-stabbing rats”, obnoxious drunks and former convicts.

London’s Daily Telegraph

described Sydney’s Games as “listing badly in a remarkably wide sea of

sleaze”, in a recent feature article that began with an unflattering description of a residents’ protest at Bondi Beach.

In Switzerland, where the Interna tional Olympic Committee has its head quarters, officials are puzzled as to why Sydney’s Games seem to be triggering such a hostile response from the locals.

“Why do Australians hate the Olympics?” one member growled at journalists after a recent meeting.

“Do you want them to fail?”

The lOC has only itself to blame for its soiled image since the lid was blown on corruption and vote-buying among some of its members this year. The star performance by Australian lOC delegate Phil Coles in the scandal has done noth ing to lift the Games’ image at home.

But this does not mean the Games themselves, and the athletes who are fulfilling a lifelong dream, should be denigrated.

The lOC official responsible for checking that Sydney’s Games go to plan, Jacques Rogge, is trying to look on the bright side of the uproar over the use of foreign marching bands at Syd ney’s opening ceremony.

“If you look at it with some distance, if people are discussing which bands will march, it’s a sign that all the rest is going well,” he said. “They’re not wor ried about venues, the organising com mittee or the Australian team - they’re worried about bands.”

In perspective, given the scandals afflicting the Olympic “family” this year, Sydney’s Games planners have managed to do their work without any real dramas to date.

The sports facilities are being built on time and largely to budget. None of the sponsors have pulled out. The Games look set to break even - even to make a tidy profit. Sure, many Sydney

residents must feel as if they’re living in a giant construction zone.

The inner-city traffic seems con stantly gridlocked, the CBD is a clam our of jackhammers and the airport is a mess.

But at least it’s temporary - in other world capitals, like New York and London, transport chaos is just a part of life.

And when the work is finished, a year from now, Sydney will boast new roads, a pedestrian-friendly CBD, spa cious new airport terminals and the world’s most modem sporting venues.

A study by Arthur Anderson esti mates the Games could add 1.2 per cent to Australia’s gross domestic product, generating up to A 56.5 mil lion in direct economic activity.

The Tourism Forecasting Council estimates the Games will lure 1.6 mil lion extra visitors.

The Olympics will do more to lift Australia’s international profile than the taxpayer-funded trade and tourist commissions could ever dream of

achieving.

Australia is among only six coun tries in the world given a chance to host the Olympics twice.

Sydney came perilously close to losing the Games to Beijing - winning by just 45 votes to 43.

The point that Sydney’s bid team promised sports funding to African delegates on the eve of the crucial vote has not been lost on international observers.

Sydney is lucky to be hosting the 2000 Olympics. The Games will only last 17 days.

So it’s about time the knockers stop

harping on about the potential prob

lems and appreciate the opportunities that the Olympics will bring. ■